The Countess and the Nazis: An American Family’s Private War

Historian Hutto (A Poisoned Life: Florence Chandler Maybrick, the First American Woman Sentenced to Death in England) follows Nazi-fighting countess Muriel White Seherr-Thoss’s (1880–1943) complex family line and her history of resistance during World War II. He begins with her father, Henry White, an ambassador to Great Britain at the end of the 19th century, and her mother, Margaret, known for her beauty. Due to Henry White’s career, the family mostly lived in Europe, where they socialized with the wealthy and powerful. But Seherr-Thoss is the centerpiece of this book. Despite her own wealth and beauty, the upheaval of the times deeply affected her. She married a German, Count Hermann “Manni” Seherr-Thoss, when she was 29, viewed as already past her prime. The couple had two sons and a daughter and lived in a castle in Silesia, a territory on the border between Germany and Poland that became fraught during the rise of Hitler, which is when Muriel Seherr-Thoss chose resistance over her privilege.